Modernisme was a cultural movement led by deeply individualistic
and anti-traditionalist intellectuals who, roughly from 1888 (the
First International Exposition of Barcelona) to 1911 (the death of
Joan Maragall,
the most important Modernista poet), attempted to update Catalan
arts and ideas so as to uplift Catalan culture to a par with other
European cultures. Such renewal included a distinctive style of Art
Nouveau in architecture and plastic arts, but also the introduction
of Symbolism, Decadence, Nietzschean Vitalism, Parnassianism and other contemporaneous
movements into Catalan literature and philosophy, a modernizing
transformation of Catalan traditional music, and so forth.

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Main concepts behind
Modernisme

Catalan Modernistes, not unlike Symbolists and Decadents such as
Charles
Baudelaire or even Oscar Wilde, largely rejected bourgeois
values, which they thought to be the opposite of art. Consequently,
they adopted two stances: they either set themselves apart from
society in a bohemian or culturalist attitude (Decadent
and Parnassian poets, Symbolist playwrights, etc.) or they
attempted to use art to change society (Modernista architects and
designers, playwrights inspired by Henrik Ibsen, some of Maragall's poetry,
etc.)

Modernistes also opposed the traditionalism and religiousness of
the Renaixença
Catalan Romantics, whom they ridiculed in plays such as Santiago
Rusiñol's Els Jocs Florals de Canprosa (roughly, "The
Poetry Contest of Proseland").

Another important influence upon Modernisme was Catalan
nationalism. The ideas of Valentí Almirall
and Enric Prat de la Riba influenced
Modernistes, most of whom opposed the centralism and militarism of
the 19th century Spanish state and wanted Catalan culture to be
regarded as equal to all other European cultures. Such ideas can be
seen in some of Rusiñol's plays against the Spanish army (most
notably L'Hèroe), in some authors close to anarchism (Jaume Brossa and
Gabriel Alomar, for example) or in the
articles of federalist
anti-monarchic writers
such as Miquel dels Sants Oliver.

Modernisme in
architecture and the plastic arts

Although the Catalan word modernisme has a wider sense,
in the arts it usually refers to the currents known in other
countries as Art
Nouveau, Modern Style, Jugendstil, Stile Liberty, Sezessionstil, etc.
It is a style basically derived from the English Arts and Crafts movement, the Pre-Raphaelite movement, the Gothic revival and the Aesthetic Movement (a restrained prelude to
Art Nouveau), as well as from Symbolism. It is characterized by the
predominance of the curve over the straight line, by rich
decoration and detail, by the frequent use of vegetal and other
organic motifs, the taste for asymmetry, a refined aestheticism,
and the dynamic shapes.

Modernisme in Catalan
literature

In literature, Modernisme stood out the most in narrative. The
nouvelles and novels of decadent writers such as Prudenci
Bertrana (whose highly controversial Josafat involved a
demented priest who ends up killing a prostitute), Caterina Albert
(also known as Víctor Catala), author of bloody, expressionistic
tales of rural violence, opposed to the idealisation of nature
propugned by Catalan Romantics, or Raimon Casellas have been highly
influential upon later Catalan narrative, essentially recovering a
genre that had been lost due to political causes since the end of
the Middle Ages. Those writers often, though not always, show
influences from Russian literature of the 19th Century and also Gothic novels. Still, works not influenced
by those sources, such as Joaquim Ruyra's slice-of-life tales of
the North-Eastern Catalan coast are perhaps even more influential
than that of the aforementioned authors, and Rusiñol's well-known
L'Auca del Senyor Esteve (roughly "The Tale of Mr.
Esteve"; an auca is a type of illustrated broadside, similar to a one-sheet
comic book) is an ironic critique of Catalan bourgeoisie more
related to ironic, pre-Realist Catalan costumisme.

In poetry, Modernisme closely follows Symbolist and Parnassian
poetry, with poets frequently crossing the line between both
tendencies or alternating between them. Another important strain of
Modernista poetry is Joan Maragall's "Paraula viva"
(Living word) school, which advocated Nietzschean vitalism
and spontaneous and imperfect writing over cold and thought-over
poetry. Although poetry was very popular with the Modernistes and
there were lots of poets involved in the movement, Maragall is the
only Modernista poet that is still widely read today.

Modernista theatre was also important, as it smashed the
insubstantial regional plays that were popular in 19th century
Catalonia. There were two main schools of Modernista theatre:
social theatre, which intended to change society and denounce
injustice—the worker stories of Ignasi Iglésias, for example
Els Vells ("The old ones"); the Ibsen-inspired works of
Joan Puig i Ferreter, most notably Aigües Encantades
("Enchanted Waters"); Rusiñol's antimilitaristic play
L'Hèroe—and symbolist theatre, which emphasised the
distance between artists and the bourgeoisie—for example, Rusiñol's
Cigales i Formigues ("Cicadas and Ants") or El Jardí
Abandonat ("The Abandoned Garden").

Modernisme in Catalan
linguistics

Modernist ideas impelled L'Avenç collaborator Pompeu Fabra to
devise a new orthography for Catalan. However, only with
the later rise of Noucentisme did his projects come to
fruition and end the orthographic chaos which reigned at the
time.

The end of
Modernisme

By 1910, Modernisme had been accepted by the bourgeoisie and had
pretty much turned into a fad. It was around this time that Noucentista artists
started to ridicule the rebel ideas of Modernisme and propelled a
more bourgeois art and a more right-of-center version of Catalan
Nationalism, which eventually rose to power with the victory of the
Lliga
Regionalista in 1912. Until Miguel Primo de Rivera's
dictatorship suppressed all substantial public use of Catalan,
Noucentisme was immensely popular in Catalonia. However, Modernisme
did have a revival of sorts during the Second Spanish Republic, with
avant-garde
writers such as Futurist Joan-Salvat Papasseit earning
comparisons to Joan Maragall, and the spirit of Surrealists such as Josep
Vicent Foix or Salvador Dalí being clearly similar to
the rebellion of the Modernistes, what with Dalí proclaiming that
Catalan Romanticist Àngel Guimerà was a putrefact
pervert. However, the ties between Catalan art from the 1930s
and Modernisme are not that clear, as said artists were not
consciously attempting to continue any tradition.

Also, Modernista architecture survived longer, as, since the
Spanish city of Melilla in
Northern Africa experienced an economic boom at the turn of the
century, its new bourgeoisie showed its riches by massively
ordering Modernista buildings - this way, the workshops established
there by Catalan architect Enrique Nieto continued producing
decorations in this style even when it was out of fashion in
Barcelona, which results in Melilla having, oddly enough, the
second largest concentration of Modernista works after
Barcelona.